The Bavarian Gate

by John Dalmas

  Closing his eyes, Macurdy dozed, to dream about the fuel gauge.

  * * *

  After an uncertain time, he awoke to dawnlight, gray and grim, and with an odd sense of detachment watched the slate-colored Adriatic for several minutes. The fuel gauge needle was very near the peg.

  "How are we doing?" he asked.

  "Better than I'd expected. We're almost far enough south to angle toward the coast. Better put a life jacket on your passenger though."

  Macurdy got in back with Trosza. What Arbel had termed "the spirit aura" was gone, and properly speaking the body aura too. All that was left was residue: the energy of tissues that survived, temporarily, the death of the integrated organism.

  Meanwhile MacNab radioed a mayday call, giving their location, bearing, and intended course, then reported "urgent living cargo." Macurdy removed the handcuffs and put a life jacket on the corpse; a lot better to bring in a dead Voitu than none at all. When he had the laces tied, he got back in front again.

  "How's your goat-eared buddy?" MacNab asked.

  "Dead. His name was Trosza. He wished me well, and shook my hand. That's when I did it to him."

  MacNab recognized contrition when he heard it; he nodded and said nothing more until, a few minutes later, he repeated his mayday with a new location and bearing. And got an answer. Three destroyer escorts operating out of Termoli were on an intercept course. Macurdy resisted asking what the prospects were. In the distance he could see the Abruzzi coast now, farther ahead than he liked.

  Again MacNab repeated his mayday, with location and bearing. "I'm at 3,600 feet," he finished, "and starting my letdown."

  "The engine hasn't quit," Macurdy pointed out.

  "I have to land crosswind, and have fuel left to maintain steerageway. Otherwise forget it. The weather's worse than predicted. Those are storm seas down there."

  Several miles farther on, Macurdy made out the three warships moving toward them in the distance, and wondered if they'd seen or heard the plane. The altimeter read 640 feet, and MacNab had cut power, radioing that the ships were in sight and on course. Short minutes later they were close above the water. No way in hell, Macurdy realized, could they refuel in waves like those. MacNab touched her down, running parallel with the seas along a crest, skipping once. Contact slowed them abruptly, and shortly they were an enclosed boat, not an aircraft. Rolling heavily, they rose like a cork on a large wave, then slid sideways into the trough. Macurdy didn't know if they were in trouble or not.

  "How's it look?" he asked.

  "If the fuel holds out, we should be okay."

  "Should I inflate a life raft?"

  "Not in the plane. I'll tell you when."

  * * *

  The fuel nearly did hold out. The destroyer escorts were perhaps a half-mile away when the engine quit. Almost at once the Widgeon weather-vaned, the wind on the rudder surface turning her into the seas. She nosed into the next wave, water washing over the windshield. With a pang of fear, Macurdy wondered if they'd recover, but the plane rose, shedding gray-green sea water, then slid into the trough and buried her nose in the next wave, staggering again as it washed over her.

  "Get in back," MacNab ordered, "and be ready to evacuate through the cabin door, with the life raft. I'll tell you when. It'll be a helluva lot easier for them to take us aboard from a raft than from the plane. As you go out, then pull the inflation cord— and for chrissake hang onto the lifeline! Pull yourself on if you can, but the important thing is to hang on to that lifeline."

  "What about you?"

  "I'll be right behind you."

  "What about Trosza?"

  "I'll bring him out. You get the raft out."

  Macurdy waited at the door, the pilot close behind, gripping Trosza's collar. "Now!" MacNab barked, and Macurdy opened the cabin door just as the Widgeon nosed downward into the trough. The abrupt change in tilt drove him back, and briefly water poured in. As the plane rose again, he made it out the door, face down on the rubber raft, gripping the lifeline with one hand, pulling the inflation cord with the other. Then he was in the water and under it, shocked by its cold. The raft popped to the surface, Macurdy somehow spread-eagled on top. MacNab was not with him, and he looked around as best he could.

  Long seconds later Macurdy saw him; he'd gotten out. The plane was riding another wave, tail higher, the open cabin door briefly clear of the water again, then it disappeared behind the crest. Macurdy rolled off the raft on the side toward the pilot, who was swimming laboriously toward him. Keeping a death grip on the lifeline, Macurdy tried with some success to stroke toward him. After a minute their hands met and gripped, then MacNab reached the lifeline and held on, coughing and gagging on salt water.

  He didn't try to climb on, just held on. The Widgeon crested another wave, tail skyward now. They didn't see her again. What they could see were two circling DEs, with the other moving in on them at "slow ahead," men in life jackets and swimming trunks at the rail.

  "Sorry," MacNab said.

  "About what?"

  "That I didn't get your goat-eared buddy out. She was tilting to the bow too much, and I had to let him go. It was that or we'd both go down."

  "He was dead anyway," Macurdy answered. He wished to hell he had the body though. It would make his story a lot more convincing.

  Then the DE was beside them, and seamen jumped in with lines. A couple of minutes later, they were hoisted aboard.

  * * *

  They got some strange looks from the crew and officers— Macurdy in jumpsuit and jump boots, MacNab in a kilt. Macurdy found himself grinning despite his loss. At least I've got another witness to what they look like, he told himself. That wouldn't answer the questions the general wanted asked, but Donovan would still okay the other half of the bargain.

  The thought didn't actually convince Macurdy, but it made him feel better.

  33

  Bypassing Authority

  It was Thursday the 27th of April, when Macurdy and MacNab arrived back at OSS headquarters in Grosvenor Square. Both were debriefed by Von Lutzow, MacNab first. Then the pilot was sent to the medical officer, because he'd come down with a bad cold and sore throat. When it was Macurdy's turn, he asked if Donovan was going to sit in. No, Von Lutzow said, the general couldn't be there. He'd read the debrief later.

  It wasn't till afterward that Vonnie told him the general had been called to Washington, and wasn't expected back for a week or ten days.

  Which left Macurdy apprehensive. "We had an oral agreement," he said. "If I pulled this mission off, I could do a second one. And I kind of did, but not entirely. I hoped I could do the follow up."

  He described his discussion with the general. "Don't worry about it," Von Lutzow told him. "I've got to write up my comments on your debriefs now—your's and MacNab's—but you and I will talk in the morning."

  * * *

  Macurdy took that as hopeful, and looked up Anna. She'd already had supper, but went to a restaurant with him, to keep him company while he ate. She'd been signed on as a civilian internal security specialist, she told him. There was nothing like that on the TO; but after she'd demonstrated her talent for him, the general had improvised.

  "What are you doing next?" she asked. "Or—that's the kind of question you're not supposed to answer, isn't it."

  "Right. But I don't expect to be in town long." He paused, not meeting her eyes. "There's something I need to talk about with you."

  "I think I know." She reached across the table and put her small hand on his. "I'm not sorry we did what we did. It was lovely.

  "But I do sincerely regret any unhappiness it caused you. I admire you, I envy and respect your Mary, and I will not ask for a repeat performance. Believe me I'd enjoy one, but I will neither ask for nor agree to it."

  She withdrew her hand. "And on that cheery note, there's an American film I'd love to see tonight, at the Leicester: Casablanca. People are talking about it, and I'm starved for a good film. I do hope you'll keep me compan
y—my treat I haven't yet had a payday here, but I held back a few pounds when your—our—organization impounded the lovely counterfeit British money I was given before we left Germany."

  He went with her, and enjoyed the film. But not the drink afterward, because he found himself feeling something which, if it wasn't love, was something very like it—fondness and appreciation, spiced with desire. He'd had somewhat the same feeling for Melody, only more strongly, when he'd thought himself still married to Varia, so he knew it was possible to be "in love" with two women at once. But knowing didn't make it any easier. When he left Anna at her quarters, both knew without saying that they wouldn't see one another again except in passing or on duty.

  * * *

  In the morning Macurdy had a message from Von Lutzow to be at his office at 0815. He arrived just after eight, and the WAC clerk-typist sent him in at once. When he entered, Von Lutzow stood and shook his hand.

  "The bad news first," he said. "Paul Berntvoll is Acting CO. while the general's away. You've probably heard his reputation. If he ever saw your debriefs, he'd want you put away somewhere, or at least off-loaded on a Section 8. So I'm not going to propose the mission you want, because anything like that would require his signature, and we wouldn't get it."

  Unexpectedly, Von Lutzow grinned. "The good news is, I'm writing it as an extension to your existing mission orders, instead. That sort of things not uncommon, but so far as I know, it's always been initialed by the general or his acting. I'm justifying it on the basis of the general's oral agreement with you. You did kidnap an alien for him—MacNab's debrief verifies that—and you lost it due to enemy fire, the flak that holed your gas tank. Then there's the timing you mentioned in your earlier debrief—Anna's verifies it, incidentally, and specifies a date—that the aliens would be shipped to Von Rundstedt's command on or about May 10th. Which makes action urgent."

  Macurdy's gaze had sharpened. "Berntvoll will shit a brick if he finds out."

  "Right. And as the general's acting, he will find out. It'll reach his desk this afternoon; that's standard routing. ," Von Lutzow smirked. "But it'll be late this afternoon, I'll make sure of that, and I happen to know he's leaving at 1500 hours. He's been seeing a daughter of General Postlethwaite, and she's taking him home to meet her mum this weekend."

  "What will you do when he gets back?"

  Von Lutzow's smile went lopsided. "I won't be here. You need a pilot, and MacNab's too sick. So I'm it. By the time we get back, the general should be here." He grinned. "I'll admit I'm not as good a navigator as MacNab, but who is? I can get you there, get you down, and get you back. That's all you need.

  "Meanwhile, you need to round up whatever you need muy pronto. Today. I've already arranged a ride in a gooney bird to Casablanca tonight, and with any luck, we'll get another one to Naples or Salerno tomorrow. When Berntvoll finds out about this on Monday, he'll be pissed—may even radio a stop on it to our offices in Algiers and Naples. I don't actually expect him to, because of your oral agreement with the general, but I can't be sure, so I want us on our way to Bavaria by then."

  Macurdy was impressed: Von Lutzow was as wild as Doc Alden or Captain Szczpura. And with Von Lutzow out on a limb for him like this, damned if he was going to worry about the navigating.

  He did though, a little.

  * * *

  Meanwhile he'd picked up his mail: two letters from Mary and one from his parents. He saved Mary's for last, savoring them, realizing how much he loved her.

  * * *

  Macurdy had known almost nothing about Von Lutzow's past, but on their flight south, the young major talked about himself. He'd graduated in civil engineering from Northwestern in 1932, and flying the Stearman biplane his father had bought him three years earlier, had spent three summers on a barnstorming tour. He'd worked literally hundreds of small towns from New England to New Mexico, taking people for ten-minute "rides in the sky," mostly at fifty cents each, had flown stunts for cash at county fairs, and occasionally hauled some well-to-do passenger to a meeting somewhere, on business or amours.

  In the off-seasons he'd tried prize-fighting; he'd been a light-heavy on the Northwestern boxing team. "I only had nine pro fights," he said. "I discovered my limitations early. But I hung around boxing gyms and worked as a sparring partner a lot—learned and improved—and it was interesting. I thought of it as collecting characters and experiences for the stories I'd write someday." He laughed. "You're one of them.

  "My mother, of course, was having a breakdown about the way I lived, especially the fighting." Laughing again, Von Lutzow touched his nose; it had been broken, that was apparent though not conspicuous. "And Dad was doing pretty well, considering the times, so when I quit, he paid to get it fixed; it looked worse than yours. He also lined me up with an engineering job. But respectability got old, and in the fall of '40, when the draft started, I enlisted. And because I'd done two years of ROTC in college, they sent me to OCS."

  Eventually the talk petered out, and briefly Macurdy watched the ocean below. That Von Lutzow's led a really interesting life, he thought. Entirely overlooking his own.

  Then he turned his thoughts to the mission, rehearsing its steps from arrival to completion. In his rehearsal, nothing went wrong, not a thing.

  * * *

  They arrived in Casablanca as intended, and almost at once caught another C47 to Algiers, where they were told nothing was flying to Italy because of bad weather there. They did, however, catch a flight to Tunis, and from there, Von Lutzow talked their way onto a B25, an urgent flight taking several high-ranking CID officers to Trapani in western Sicily.

  The next noon, Monday, found them in Naples, but Von Lutzow was reluctant to tap the standard OSS sources of equipment: He was afraid there'd be an order waiting for him from Berntvoll, to return at once to London. Evading orders was one thing; disobeying them was something else. And anyway he assumed he could manage with charm and bullshit.

  But things had changed. The 5th army was there, waiting for better weather to dry the roads—waiting to launch a major offensive northward and liberate the army at Anzio, trapped on its beachhead and pounded on by the Germans since January. Resources were tight, and the base in Naples ran pretty much "by the book." People weren't dealing fast and loose the way they had when a fluid situation required it.

  The next day, Von Lutzow said they might have to settle for a land plane. Aside from twin-engined PBYs, large and noisy, there were very few amphibians at the base, and he hadn't come close to getting one of them.

  The following morning, he took the risk he'd hoped to avoid: He contacted the OSS project that flew support to Yugoslav guerrillas across the Adriatic. Yes, there'd been a message from the acting CO, but the project commander disliked Berntvoll—"the stick," he called him—and was willing to ignore the order, on the grounds that the general would be back soon, and hopefully overrule the man. Besides, he said, it'd be a shame to let the OSS become just another chicken-shit, by-the-book outfit.

  He didn't have an amphibian Von Lutzow could borrow, but he could loan him a single-engined utility aircraft. A pair of freefall chutes came with it, and he could throw in supply chutes if needed. It also had an improvised interior gas tank for refueling in the air from 4 or 5-gaIlon cans. Using it stank up the cabin pretty badly and carried a risk of explosion, but it was useful for long flights.

  That afternoon, the two mavericks reviewed their plan. The plane, of course, could not be landed on the lake, and the waning moon, slender now, wouldn't rise till almost 0230 AM; landing on the country road would be hellaciously risky. So Macurdy would jump; he insisted on it. He had what he needed: From England he'd brought a musette bag stuffed with K rations, a towel, and a few other things, plus a curved plywood pack frame, a canvas supply-drop bag fitted with lashing rings, and a coil of nylon line for lashing it onto the pack frame. And the working tools: blasting caps and 30 feet of fuse.

  "I hate like hell to leave you there," Von Lutzow said.

 
"I'll be okay. I was well trained for getting out crosscountry before I went the first time. And I'm in uniform; if they catch me, there's a decent chance they won't shoot me."

  Von Lutzow took a deep breath: He was skeptical of that "decent chance." This didn't seem as good an idea as it had in London, but then, he reminded himself, things seldom did. "No second thoughts?" he asked.

  Macurdy shook his head firmly. "I know what the stakes are," he said. "I'm probably the only one who does. Even Anna doesn't, really. The Voitar didn't give her the depth of training they gave me, nor anything like the close contact." He grinned, taking Von Lutzow by surprise. "Besides, no one's going to see me unless I screw up."

  "Well," Von Lutzow said, "let's pray for decent weather."

  The forecast had not been favorable, but it seemed to him, just then, that the weather would be fine.